Next-gen NAND boosts SSD write speeds

A team of Japanese engineers have developed a new generation of NAND flash memory whose drive voltage is as low as 1V.

According to Nikkei, the next-gen NAND boosts SSD data writing speeds to a blazing 10 Gbytes per second - as data is written across 100+ chips in parallel.

"[The] new writing method [is] called 'single-cell self-boost method.'[This] turns off two cells adjacent to unchosen cells by applying a voltage of 1V from both ends of the bit line connected to the unchosen cells so that the channel of the unchosen cells is in [a] state of floating," explained Nikkei's Jyunichi Ooshita.

"When the voltage of the word line is increased to 6V, the channel electrical potential of the unchosen cells increases. As a result, the difference between the electrical potentials of the unchosen cells and the word line decreases, preventing write disturb problems."

Ooshita noted that the power consumption of the 1V ferroelectric NAND was 86% lower compared to existing 1.8V-driven NAND flash memory.

"[So], when an SSD is made by using the new ferroelectric NAND, it is possible to increase the number of NAND chips on which data can be written in parallel to up to 110.

"[This] is 6.9 times more than that of the existing NAND flash memory. As a result, the data writing speed of the SSD reaches up to 9.5 Gbytes per second."